Stories on Stage founder Norma Moore resigns effective May 16

Norma Moore, founder and artistic director of the Denver-based Stories on Stage, has announced her retirement after 10 years, effective May 16. She cited family considerations.

This popular series was founded with a simple, old-fashioned mission: Put great actors on a stage to read contemporary and classic short fiction to a live adult audience. Each program is built around a theme, such as food or the holidays.

Since June 2000, it has drawn approximately 50,000 audience members.
Moore won a 2008 Denver Post Ovation Award, in part because she not only expanded programming to take on tough themes like addiction, slavery and mental illness, but also because she undertook to create her own original programming.

“The Calling to Care” was a completely original piece that told the stories of those who walk patients through every step of their journeys with cancer. The material drew entirely from Moore’s own interviews with members of the local community.

“That was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” Moore said. “I felt so useful. It was beyond wonderful.”

The board of directors has narrowed to four the field of potential replacements to be interviewed next week. Moore hopes to introduce her successor on May 16 at the program titled “No Holds Barred,” to be held at the Stage Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

This program was originally scheduled to be held on May 23, but it has been moved up because of scheduled renovations to the lobby of the Bonfils Theatre Complex that houses the Stage Theatre.

“If people have had a story they felt wasn’t being heard, Stories on Stage has been a place where they can come and get that story told in a way that is meaningful to them, and meaningful to the community,” Moore said. “Hopefully, it has awakened and nurtured people with the power of stories to help us in our lives. And to the effect that stories have on people’s sense of belonging – to each other, and to people they don’t know.”

The cast for the May 16 program includes John Rubinstein, who originated the title role in “Pippin” and won a Tony Award for his role in “Children of a Lesser God”; Jonathan Nichols (“Everybody Loves a Train Wreck”); and Denver Center Theatre Company actors Kathleen M. Brady and Randy Moore (Norman Moore’s husband).

Brady and Randy Moore will be reading an Abbott & Costello routine called “A Dollar A Day.”

Norma has broadened the horizons of culture in Denver, not only with a great format – actors reading stories to adult – but also through content. She has a no-holds barred approach to the themes addressed through stories, but she does it with humor and grace. Norma has always been inclusive and her universal issues reach across all ethnicities, all genders and all ages to explore how different sectors of our multifaceted community deal with them. Norma will be missed but am looking forward to the continuation of Stories on Stage and the values of diversity that are an integral part of the organization.